How To Stop Your Dog From Mugging Your Guests When They Greet Them
Solving a dog jumping problem is easily resolved and managed if you will invest some time into training your dog in basic social greeting skills. First let us understand why dogs behave this way. Often dogs jump up as a greeting. They want to get into our faces for some good old “primate” affection. They are saying, “Hey, I am here.” What is our normal reaction when a dog jumps up? We either cuddle them, give them verbal encouragement or, when their jumping is unwanted, we physically push them away. Any of these reactions by us achieves your dog’s desired objective, our attention. We have reinforced our dog’s behavior with our verbal or physical attention. Because we are rewarding jumping, the behavior becomes stronger.
Smaller dogs are often more guilty of this behavior since the consequences of a small dog jumping up at you are not as annoying or dangerous as a large dog. This is why small dog jumping often goes uncorrected. In addition, we often encourage puppies to jump on us because it is cute and makes them easier to reach. We forget that they may soon grow into a 75-pound linebacker. Then, after Fido has knocked us to the floor leaving his dirty paw prints all over us, the cute behavior that we encouraged quickly becomes an annoying and unwelcome canine habit.
After all, we invite dogs to share our human world so we have an obligation to provide them with fair and consistent guidelines and boundaries to ensure our four legged friends have good doggie etiquette. Training your dog in basic behaviors has numerous benefits. The most prevalent advantage is that it gives us an effective way to communicate with our dog.
What is the practical application of all of this? The easiest way to modify an unwanted behavior is to teach the dog an alternate, or incompatible desirable behavior, such as, in the case of a jumpy social dog, ‘Sit’.
So let’s look at our formula.
- Teach your dog a solid sit behavior so when you say sit, the dog sits
- From this point onwards, no jumping should be reinforced by anyone in anyway.
- Now if doggie jumps, you turn your back to them and completely ignore the behavior. That means no eye contact, no verbal communication and no touching.
- Your dog will quickly realize that the jumping behavior does not get them the attention they want. They will usually go into a default ‘Sit’ position while they consider their options.
By consistently following this simple formula, you have removed the reward gained by jumping and are teaching your dog that if they exhibit an alternative desirable behavior (sitting), they get the attention they want. Remember, be consistent and, over time, the jumping will cease.
Niki Tudge is the owner and founder of The DogSmith, America’s Dog Training, Dog Walking and Pet Care Franchise. To learn more about joining the DogSmith visit http://www.888dogsmith.com/franchise.html Niki achieved her Canine Behaviorist Diploma in England and Dog Obedience Training Diploma in the US. Niki is an Endorsed member of the National Association of Dog Obedience Trainers and a professional member of the Association of Pet Dog Trainers and The Association of Animal Behavior Professionals. Niki is also certified by the Certification Council for Professional Dog Trainers. You can reach Niki via email at NTudge@888dogsmith.com or www.888DogSmith.com
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